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@sanderson wrote:Two clicks of the mouse and I accidentally ordered Teaming with Nutrients. Has anyone besides CC started reading it?

Let's us know what you think. I'm behind the posse in reading the book, still on TWM

In the mid 1800s a German scientist developed nutrients that led to the chemical fertilizer industry as we know it now. After a few years of using it and finding the negative impact on life in soil in his vegetable gardens spent the rest of his life trying to undo his teachings...and have people go back to their own sewage as fertilizer.Teaming with Nutrients..Maybe a good read ? I'll go through it, however, lots of information in it that I am not particularly interested in although it's all pertinent to plant life, I am halfway through and I believe it could be a worthy read for the scientifically minded which I am not, although I am getting a much better idea on how plants function.

I think I need to read Teaming with Microbes again. In addition to our other veggie and flower regular soil gardens, we have two 4x4 SFG boxes (wood sides filled with MM) and behind them two 4x4 beds surrounded by bricks and containing regular soil. I'm undecided as to whether or not I should put SFG boxes on top of those two regular soil beds. The soil is pretty good. I'm saying that based on the crops we have been able to grow over many years. It's many years since I used any commercial fertilizer in that soil. I have added compost and peat moss from time to time. The one thing I have hated is turning the soil over by hand every Spring. But I'm thinking of keeping the soil beds and using some of the ideas from Teaming with Microbes, which if I recall correctly, means I do not have to do heavy digging in the soil every year. I can add some compost, maybe some MM and compost tea as required. If I do that, then I can put one or more SFG boxes in front of the existing SFG boxes and I gain more growing area. Seems like a win win approach to me.

TD, It seems you want to invest in 2 new SFG beds and just help nature with the traditional bed. As the TB worked nicely for what you put in it, seems like the best plan. You could add another layer of bricks or boards around TBs and fill the extra inches with compost, leaf mold, coffee grounds, etc. The worms should do their magic by blending everything and the microbes their job. There should be virtually no weeding or turning over in the spring if you re-top every fall.

I totally amended (well the worms helped with the micro turning of the soil and additives) a 3x3 spot with a layer of horse poo, topped with coffee grounds, Ecoscrap compost, cheap Kellogg', chicken compost, perlite, anything left over. 18 months later the bed is awesome with over-wintered, over-sized flowers. I accidentally followed TWM!

I didn't mean to sound like the authority! I just meant that you can keep your TBs and really improve it to be more weed free and not need to turn it over each spring. Just add more compost and mix in.

I amended this space in the fall of 2014 and planted in the spring of 2015. The horse pooh at the bottom of the new stuff was still identifiable as pooh in the spring of 2015 but the depth of the 6-pack flowers didn't reach into the pooh much, if at all. If you add aged horse pooh and compost and what ever you want now, you should plant what you normally do. Over the summer, it should get better and better as the microbes, worms and other critters do their magic.

Here are the beds before adding anything. You can even see a back of Kellogg's in the wheel barrow. Lots of fine wood in it, but I just wanted anything organic in it.

This is the spot now. There is one giant petunia and one tall flower plant I don't know the name. Larkspur?? I just took this photo. I dug down to the dirt and the ingredients are now unidentifiable!

I watched a TV program tonight, Chernobyl- 30 years later. The area is still radioactively active and they examined the biological and botanical life. The area is a tinder box of dead trees because there are no microbes to break down the plant life. We understand why, huh? A second point is that the leaves absorbed radioactive material before they died. A forest fire would release all of that radioactive material should one occur.

This is what I heard or extrapolated from the program. Higher forms of life seemed to be less affected by radiation, depending. Fish seem to be able to repair their DNA. Insects were visibly genetically altered. Small rodents were suffering deformations until they were fed a supplied diet of anti-oxidants. This was just a test on a small scale. Larger mammals and birds - can't remember specifics, but a few were seen in the area. Yes there were defects. I suppose the word that best fits is survive, not thrive. Only the fish seemed to have cancer reversing capability built in to their genetics to be described as thriving.

The microbes were not able to survive, so "reseeding" microbes in the area might be hopeless. There are some extreme hot spots where something radioactive was just covered in site. I think they said the Russians were building a second outer cement shell on the previously poured shell. If I see it on again, I will post time and station.

this year is the first time my cool weather plants like broccoli etc.. have not been attack by the cabbage worm or slugs attacks. Usually they start make small holes in the leaves in their night raids, then advance to full time work in the daytime. I see the slugs on the ground , but not in the bed. This the first year I consistently added the compost tea and garrent juice pro, which have ingredient for building up the soil food web. It seem to have stop everything in it infancy. We are in May and usually I have to spray BT or put the netting up. I'm impressed and that a understatement.

I was rereading the "Teaming with Microbes book" for making the tea. I missed it earlier when it said that the fungally dominated tea basically ensures prevention of powdery mildew and others, not the bacterial dominated. I think Jimmy Cee posted earlier he was making some. I going to make some monday. So far no diseases, but I going up my game. This note is on page 334 in Ibook(digital read).

Powdery mildew up close. Image copyright Dennis Kunkel Microscopy, Inc.Bacterially dominated teas have been useful in outcompeting pathogens in mild cases of dollar spot (Sclerotinia spp.—severe infestations also require lots of fungal competitors), necrotic ring spot (Leptosphaeria spp.), yellow patch (Rhizoctonia cerealis), leaf spots (Bipolaris spp., Curvularia spp.), pink patch (Limonomyces spp.), and stripe smut (Ustilago spp.). Insects too succumb to the effects of compost teas, specifically weevils, grubs (Ataenius spp.), cutworms, and chafers; several reports attest to negative impacts on whiteflies, fire ants, and scale.At the first sign of disease or insect infestations on any of your plants, apply teas and repeat in five to seven days. Obviously, a prophylactic application is best: if you have a sense of your yard’s phenology (seasonal cycles), you should be able to apply teas in advance of breakouts.Finally, certain weeds are affected by compost teas. Clover and quack grass have a tougher time of it when ”

@has55 wrote:Jimmy Cee, how long at the end of the brewing are you aerating the fungi to get it separated from the homemade fungal compost?

I've only one batch of the fungal dominated tea. Mistakenly, I added the fungal compost from the start, it appeared to do well, however, only testing can determine that and that's no option for me.A terrific fungal compost was made, I forgot the container was there for 2 weeks. had it hidden and I did such a good job of hiding it, I forgot . I really have been busy with other things and hope to start these teas soon..When I do, I'll keep a five gallon bucket rolling 24 / 7.

I'll like to keep two 5 gallons bucket going. I need to get my verimicomposting garden buckets full again, but been busy with irrigation repair. On my last leg. But compost is cheap to get. At this stage I been applying my small compost to the beds and it's a small amount at this time. But I can get cotton burr compost, etc... at the feed store.

I can't find a way to contact Jeff for the amount of time to add the fungal compost, except to do it at the end, but no duration time mentioned. I'm going to review the bountea procedure, because they add fungi at the end of the compost time. I'll see if they have a duration time in their video or I'll contact them and post back.

I thought I add more fun to the compost tea fire.Some more watering ideas from old video by bountea's founder. His heart is in it. Now that we have more scientific understanding. His words make sense why it works.Jimmy Cee , he uses a oxygenation method that similar to yours, but it's a shorter tool that he inserts into the bucket.

ok, I found the answer on the next video on how long to brew the fungi-30-60 mins after you complete the bacteria brew., if you're using the short cut method or brew 72 hrs to make it fungal dominated. They where way ahead of their time.Has some good video on their website.but you have to stay there to see them. If you select youtube, you will go to see youtube and all kinds of other video.

more helpful instruction to glean from, unless you just want to use their product. I think the product are high, but maybe it cheaper when it use by usage. I don't know. Brewing Bountea Compost Tea

@has55 wrote:Jimmy Cee, how long at the end of the brewing are you aerating the fungi to get it separated from the homemade fungal compost?

I've only one batch of the fungal dominated tea. Mistakenly, I added the fungal compost from the start, it appeared to do well, however, only testing can determine that and that's no option for me.A terrific fungal compost was made, I forgot the container was there for 2 weeks. had it hidden and I did such a good job of hiding it, I forgot . I really have been busy with other things and hope to start these teas soon..When I do, I'll keep a five gallon bucket rolling 24 / 7.

I made my first batch wrong, but I believe I'll still get the fungus. Went to the store with DW to gets some oatmeal. She asked me if I knew what I needed. I got the big head and said, "yes". SO I purchased the value pack oatmeal, poured out three packages into a bowl and soak till moist and place in closet. Later, went back to looked at the recipes and found I got the instructions wrong. I was to use compost and mixed in 3-4 four TBS in a cup of compost material. The SQF Journey is well on it's way.

“Give fungi a head startMany new to tea brewing become frustrated because it can be difficult to grow fungi in quantities sufficient to make a balanced tea, much less a fungally dominated one. This is because bacteria not only grow but multiply rapidly in tea given adequate nutrition; whereas the brew time is almost never long enough for fungi to multiply in tea—they only grow bigger. The better way is to activate fungi in the compost prior to making tea, allowing populations to multiply before they are teased out of the compost and into the tea brew.This activation is easily accomplished: several days ”“before brewing the tea, mix the compost with simple proteins that serve as a good fungal food—such things as soybean meal, powdered malt, oatmeal, oat bran, or, best of all, powdered baby oatmeal. Thoroughly mix in one of these at the rate of three or four tablespoons per cup of compost. Make sure there is sufficient moisture in the compost, which is to say a drop of moisture can be squeezed out of a fistful of it. Put the mixture in a container, and place the container in a warm, dark place. A seed-germinating mat, placed beneath the container, works great to provide the proper heat.After about three days at 80F (27C), the fungi in your compost, if you had sufficient numbers of them in the first instance, will have grown, and their invisible hyphal threads merged into a network of visible mycelia. The compost should look like Santa Claus’s beard, covered with long, white, fluffy strands. In a few more days, there will be so many fungal threads, the entire container of compost will be glued together.”